Aintree Grade One Runners

There are three meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Aintree and Taunton and an all-weather flat fixture from Southwell.  Today marks the first day of the Grand National meeting from Liverpool and David has two runners on the card, contesting the first two Grade One races - they are Umbrigado and Adagio.  Umbrigado (pictured above) contests the Manifesto novices' chase at 1.45pm - it is a 2m4f race featuring some of the best novices' in the country.  There is little to choose between most of the field and Umbrigado is a progressive sort, having won his last three starts over fences, including an ultra-competitive Grade 3 handicap at Newbury last time.  He is fully effective at the trip and on the ground and fully deserves his place in the line-up.  An exciting mount for David Noonan.

Our other runner is Adagio, who runs in the Doom Bar Anniversary Juvenile Hurdle at 2.20pm.  He has already won the Grade 1 Finale Hurdle at Chepstow this season and followed that up with an excellent second in the Triumph Hurdle.  He is the one with the rock solid form in the book, yet he is not favourite which seems odd to me.  Monmiral is undoubtedly a horse of great potential,  but he will need to be.  Tom Scudamore rides Adagio and he must go close.

It will be interesting to see how dual Grand National winner Tiger Roll gets on in the Betway Bowl at 2.50pm.  It would be quite something if he could add a Bowl to his CV, but he is clearly in the wrong race at the meeting.

*****

Chelsea put themselves in a strong position to progress to the semi-finals of the Champions League after they beat FC Porto 2-0 away from home last night.

Arsenal and Manchester United are in Europa League quarter final action tonight.

Stephen Hendry crashed out of the World Snooker Championship qualifiers yesterday, losing 6-1 to Xu Si having won the first frame.  Xu Si is ranked only one place ahead of Jimmy White, who Hendry beat in his previous match, but he was never in this after blowing a big lead in the second frame.  He has only played three competitive matches since coming out of retirement so I suppose he could be a little rusty.  Nonetheless, it would appear the glory days are long gone.  It is a shame to see these once great sportsmen struggling to beat opponents they would have wiped the floor with in previous years.

*****

A man was jumped in an alleyway by two muggers.  He put up a heroic resistance but was finally overpowered by the attackers who went through his pockets but didn't find much.
"You mean you fought like that for 48 pence?" said one mugger incredulously.
"Is that all you wanted?" said the man, relieved.  "I thought you wanted the £500 in my shoe."